The Trouble With Paris
by fialka62
Summary: 'If only'...what? Canon in the interstices, for Wig257, who didn't get nearly as much Victor Webster as she wanted.
1. Chapter 1

_Those of you who have been waiting for the end of Another Thing About Mornings will be happy to hear that it's finally going out for beta. Until that's done, there's this._

_A quick note about this story – it was written before Knockdown so I'm a little miffed they sent Josh off to Africa, since I was planning to send him off to Senegal with Medecins Sans Frontiers later on (and Jillian Casey can vouch!) But, as there may not be a 'later on', I've decided to post this as is, before any more of it gets jossed. As for those other plans, we'll see how the season plays out, but let's consider it a one-shot for now._

_0-0-0_

It hits Kate Beckett in the middle of a charity gala: she's bored.

Not just with the gala itself (no crime to solve, just Josh in a tux and herself in a tight black Vera Wang that's deliberately a little too punk for the occasion). Not just with meeting about a hundred of Josh's friends and co-workers at once (it's a benefit for the pediatric cardiology unit, and he's the guest of honour). No, she's bored of the broad smile Josh receives when he introduces her as his girlfriend, and the way it always freezes when he adds that she's a cop.

It isn't quite the way that other people freeze, as if mentally checking their pockets for dope or wondering whether their parking tickets are all paid up. It's a freeze that says _whatever would a pretty girl like you be doing mixed up in an ugly profession like that?_ A look she knows all too well, having seen it on faces as far back as her English lit professor at NYU _(how could you possibly want to waste yourself on the police?)_ and as recently as the bartender she and Castle interviewed this morning _(hey baby, when did the pigs start recruiting at Barbizon?)_

She remembers, too, how Castle moved a bit closer when the guy kept answering questions to her chest. Not as if he thought she needed him to defend her honour, or as a beard to hide behind, but as if to say _I'd be very happy to hold your purse while you take this dickhead down. _The thought of which brings forth an involutary smile, and Josh glances at her sideways, because Professor Ralph McLaren holding forth about surgical applications of aortic graft tissue for asystolic whatever sure as hell isn't doing that. "But, oh dear," McLaren says, mistaking the smile for polite horror, "I appear to be turning your lovely lady's stomach with my gory details."

Kate holds her breath, giving Josh a chance to say something first - it's his boss's boss they're talking to after all - and when he doesn't, she opens her mouth and lets the response on the tip of her tongue roll off: "I'm a homicide detective. I could tell you what my latest crime scene looked like, if you have a taste for gore."

McLaren's suddenly blank expression is slightly gratifying, although Josh's lips have tightened in a way that says she's going to hear about this on the way home. Just then her phone goes off in her bag and she nearly sighs with relief. "Speaking of, that'll be work," she tells Josh, without even checking first. "Please excuse me for a moment."

It won't be work, she's pretty sure of that. Esposito is off on one of his "secret" dates with Lanie (another involuntary smile). Ryan is snuggled up with Jenny, planning the precinct's wedding of the year (she must warn Jenny that no matter how much Esposito begs, she should NOT let him hold the stag night at McSorley's - there are many, many stories Kate can tell about those, and they all end in bridal tears). Harriman's squad is catching tonight, so even if a body has dropped it won't be hers and Montgomery won't call her off-duty since they've got no case open and he knows she has plans.

That leaves only Castle. The thought of which pushes Kate outside to the terrace bar, where the few smokers willing to brave the January chill are huddled around the one table with a heat lamp glowing softly from beneath its summer umbrella.

Kate moves over to the parapet and slides her phone out of her bag. Sure enough, it's him. "What part of night off do you not understand?" she asks, barely noticing the icy breeze blowing up from the street, protected as she is by the heat suddenly rushing to the surface of her skin.

"The part that's off, I guess, though I'm sure with a small effort I could imagine."

She laughs, and for a moment it's like Castle is standing behind her, wrapping her in his tuxedo jacket while he's still wearing it. "Was there something you wanted to say, or were you just checking to see how bored I am?"

"Both. And is the answer _very_?"

Now she sighs. She shouldn't be playing this game, not with Josh waiting for her inside, where it's legitimately warm. Isn't this the reason she has a Josh in the first place? To make sure she never thinks about Castle as _possible _again?

"It is," she admits. "It's also very cold. I'm standing outside on the terrace."

"What are you doing out there?"

"Taking an apparently pointless phone call."

"You had to go outside to...never mind." The banter drops out of his voice, as it generally does when the subject of Josh comes up. She guesses he's still smarting a bit from being dismissed as _that writer_, much as her other partners are still bristling about being verbally patted on the head. "Rafael, the victim's nephew. Said something about how she gave him the ten thousand to start a college fund for his son. Now, since when does a cable repairman who flunked out of high school think about a college fund for a two-year-old?"

"Has Alexis been talking about Oxford again?"

"Cambridge, actually, and I'm staunchly pretending she means the one with Harvard. But do you see what I mean?"

"I do. But we're already watching his every move, so until we've got something more concrete to go on, there's nothing to justify a warrant. Maybe the aunt really did want the kid to have the kind of chance they didn't."

"Maybe." She hears a drawn-out undertone of disappointment in his voice, one she steadfastly refuses to interpret as a reluctance to let her go. And she should get going - the thin silk of her dress isn't much more covering than being out here naked, and she really is starting to get cold.

"Castle-" she begins, but he cuts her off brightly.

"I know, I know. Go back inside and be bored and warm. Make Josh bring you a vodka martini. Double."

"I prefer mine dirty, and I can do it myself," she answers and clicks off, indulging in one last mental image - his gobsmacked face staring at the phone.

She does indeed stop at the bar on her way back in, though it's champagne only, which is not warming at all. Josh gives her a curious look as she lifts his arm and slides neatly beneath it. She's not usually this affectionate with him in public, but it looks appropriate enough and the heat of his arm feels wonderful draped over her bare shoulders.

"Everything okay?" he asks.

"Fine, nothing that can't wait till tomorrow." She takes a sip of champagne and shivers involuntarily against his side.

"You're ice cold," he says, holding her closer. "Where did you go?"

She rises slightly to whisper in his ear. "Take me home right now and I'll let you warm me up."

"Kate, you know I can't," he whispers back, rubbing his hand over the chilled flesh of her upper arm. "It's only nine o'clock, this thing's barely started. And it would be rude to show up, grab my award, and then run."

"I know." She tries not to sigh, tries not to imagine the stunned delight on Castle's face if she ever said something like that to him, or how quickly he'd have her out the door. She never goes any further than that moment, not even inside her own imagination. If she wants to know what it might be like to make love with Richard Castle, she only has to read his books. Which, since her near _faux pas_ at the beginning of last summer, she most emphatically does not need to know.

She looks up at Josh instead. He's hardly second-best, dreamy eyes and big career. For all that it's not his world and that makes him awkward in it, he does respect her job, she's quite sure of that. And he likes _her_. A lot. "Quickie in the supply closet then?" she offers, with her most mischievous smile.

"You have no right to be this hot," he answers, punctuating it with a kiss to her forehead. "I'll make it up to you later, I promise."

And on that promise at least, she knows he'll make good. As for Castle, well, they'll never have Paris, but there'll always be the 12th.

_0-0-0_

_Feedback is like chocolate: not necessary for life, but awfully yummy when you get some. _


	2. Chapter 2

She picks Josh up at JFK when he comes back from Dakar, amazed that she has somehow become one of those women standing just on the other side of customs, waiting for her man to come back from his adventures in the world.

She sees him before he sees her, not difficult considering he's six foot eight and towers a full head above everyone else on the flight. A few others have noticed him too, notably a small gaggle of giggling teenaged girls standing to her right, and she tries not to feel stupidly proud when Josh's gaze settles on her and his tired face suddenly brightens as if someone has turned on a stadium light behind his eyes.

His stride quickens and lengthens and before she can actually think about what's going to happen he's holding her so tightly her feet are a good six inches off the ground. 'I wasn't sure you'd be here,' he whispers into her hair, and she feels a small shiver run down her back.

'Neither was I. I'm in the middle of a case,' she says, and he immediately deflates, as if she's let his air out to bring him down to average size.

'Okay. Well, thanks.' He sets her back on her feet and reaches for the duffel bag he'd dropped when he swept her up in his arms. He looks like a child who's reacting bravely to the idea that Christmas won't be coming this year, and she suddenly feels nothing less than awful, unworthy.

'So I'll have to get up early, but we can have tonight,' she adds quickly, and if anything it makes her feel worse to see the bright lights immediately snap back on.

0—0—0

Traffic on the BQE is awful, so she doesn't talk much, alert for any space she can zoom into, just to make it feel like they're making some kind of progress. Josh talks instead, turned towards her in his seat, occasionally reaching a long arm across the car to stroke her hair, or rest on her thigh. Tiny touches, not quite sexual, not quite not, as if he wants to reassure them both that he's really home. It's sweet but annoying, and she finally takes his hand and just holds it for a moment to get him to stop.

''I'm sorry, I forgot you don't like to be pawed in public,' he says, and it's true, she does feel as if her privacy is somehow being breached, with every other driver free to stare since there's no need to watch the road. 'I just haven't been able to think of anything else this week, except seeing you again, being able to touch you. Have my way with you. Or better yet, let you have your wicked way with me.'

She laughs and he lifts their clasped hands, takes one of her fingers into his mouth. His tongue is hot and wet, and suddenly she is too, which she's damned sure was the point.

'I'm driving, Josh,' she says, but she doesn't pull her hand away.

'You're driving no faster than I could walk and have been for the last half hour. Just keep your eyes open, and I'll do the rest.'

At which point the traffic inexplicably loosens up and she laughs again as he groans in disappointment. 'Once we're home,' she promises, pulling her hand away to signal before zooming into the next lane, 'you can have me any way you want.'

0—0—0

They wind up at her apartment because the heat has been off at his for the last six weeks, and it'll be full of stale dust and unopened mail. She makes him wait at the door while she checks for mess (or so she says), but really it's because she can't remember if she left the shutters on the secret murder board open or closed, and she is so _not_ ready to talk about that right now.

Her apartment has the usual signs of its occupant being face-down in work for weeks on end: her cupboards are bare of anything but basics, the fridge is full of leftover takeaway in various stages of decomp, and there's a considerable pile of laundry in the basket in her closet. But in general, she tends towards obsessive tidyness in times of stress and once she's hidden the board it's presentable enough. She clears two wineglasses and an empty bottle of Chateau Neuf-du-Pape off her desk, remnants of last night's "work-related" drop-by, and it occurs to her that she's going to have to break Castle of that newly developed habit now that Josh is back.

It's a thought which makes her inexplicably sad, even though she sees him more days than not.

'All clear?' Josh asks from the hall.

She puts the glasses in the sink and the bottle in the recycling, takes one last look, and answers, 'Yes.'

She really needn't have worried about his seeing the shutters open, or any other signs of slovenliness for that matter: Josh's expression makes it clear he's not seeing anything but her right now. Which is both a little frightening, and very very hot. Hot like his mouth on hers, and his hands (warm despite the cold hall she'd left him standing in) already under her shirt deftly unclasping her bra, and the hard bulge nuzzling her belly which needs to be inside her _now_, up on the kitchen counter where the height and the angle are so absolutely perfect she's out of her head and out of consonants in less than fifteen minutes.

He leans over her when she's finished, tickling her cheeks with little kisses. Inside, he's still buried deep, and she closes her eyes as he rocks his hips, just enough to make her back arch involuntarily and a moan escape from her lips.

Goddamn him, he is just too fucking (literally) good at this.

'Cold,' she complains, and he wraps his arms around her as she is and carries her to the couch. She's on top now, straddling his lap. Her turn to fuck him, and his eyes go wide as she clenches all her inner muscles tightly and begins to do just that.

0—0—0

'You are hotter than a hot thing,' he says later, as they're curled in her bed, lazily stroking each other to sleep. 'You know that?'

'Mmm. Been told.'

'But you're _my_ hot thing. Right?'

She lifts her head from where it's nestled in the hollow of his shoulder, suddenly wide awake. 'What do you mean?'

'I mean you're the one. I realized that on my second day in Africa. I was holding this baby I'd just operated on and he was so tiny, Kate, his head just fit into the palm of my hand. And I wanted you to be there to see that, to see this little guy, and to see what I can do so you'll understand why I have to go away to do it and you won't feel left behind or like I don't love you enough to stay and you'll forgive me for not being there when you need me sometimes because you're the one I want to come home to when I'm done.'

He's said the words in a rush and now he's holding his breath and so is she because she has absolutely no idea what to say. The feeling she's having right now, the closest word she has to describe it, is _panic._

'Don't,' he says quickly. He curls closer, tucking her head under his chin so she can't look at him any more. 'Don't answer, don't even think about it right now. I'm not saying marry me and have my babies and let's build a house in the country to raise them. I just want you to know I'm in this as far as you want to take it. In case you had any doubts.'

She flattens her hand over his heart, feels it beating strong against her palm. 'Okay,' she whispers, grateful when he seems to take that as answer enough. For now.

0—0—0

And then he's waking her from a hazy dream of danger, tugging on her hand, not too gently either.

'Kate. Get up. Now.'

'What? I don't-'

She lets Josh pull her from the warmth of the blankets, too disoriented to resist, and not quite certain she hasn't woken from one dream into another. 'This,' he answers, dragging her to the window behind her desk, where the shutters are now open and the sun is rising through the post-its and the papers and the gruesome crime scene photographs. 'Kate, what is this?'

She wraps her arms around herself, small protection against the chill she feels coming from inside, colder than the morning air on her bare skin. All the shutters are open, there are things on the kitchen counters that weren't there the night before, and she has the same sudden, overwhelming feeling of suffocation she did the night Castle said _it's about your mother_.

She keeps her voice low to hold the anger down. 'You're going through my things now?'

'I was letting some daylight in. I wanted to make you breakfast.' He goes to the board and pulls down the picture of her mother crumpled in that alley and holds it out. 'What is this?'

She snatches the photo out of his hand. 'My business, that's what it is.'

'You said your mother died but you didn't want to talk about it.' He points to the board where the name _Johanna Beckett_, written in Kate's own hand, proclaims the truth. 'That's your mother in that picture, isn't it?'

She walks over to the window without answering, puts the photo back where it belongs and closes the shutters again. Only when everything is hidden can she manage to breathe deeply enough to answer, 'Yes.'

'Your mother was murdered?'

'Yes.'

'And you keep it…you have _photographs?_ And _evidence_? In your…Jesus, Kate, this is so _morbid_.'

She whirls on him, fury suddenly whipping out of her control. 'This is what I do, Josh. I'm a _homicide detective_. What the hell did you think that meant?'

'But this is your _mother_.'

'This is a _case_ that I'm trying to solve.'

In her bedroom, her alarm clock goes off, reminding her that there's another case waiting, and she's already taken more time off than she should.

He follows her into the bedroom. 'But _he_ knows, doesn't he? Castle. You told _him._'

'Josh, I'm not having this conversation standing here naked when I'm late for work,' she says, slapping off the alarm.

'Fine,' he snaps. 'But we're going to talk about this later.'

'No. We're not.' She finds her robe jammed between the mattress and the bedstead, and flings it on. 'Unless I bring it up, the subject is off-limits from now on.'

'But you'll talk about it with _him_?'

He looks hurt, lost, bewilderingly small for such a large man. She holds her breath, unable to form a response. The truth is too much, but to say no would be an outright lie, not as easily forgivable as a lie of omission. None of this is anything she wants to share with Josh. Castle knows all about her darker self; he has an uncanny knack of reading what she can't express, and she's only now beginning to realise how much she's come to rely on him for that. On his ability to understand what she wants to say without her needing to say it. And so, like the time she told him about her mother, it sometimes becomes possible for her to speak the unspeakable. But only to him. She doesn't want that with Josh, doesn't need it. What she needs is the light he brings, hands that hold lifesaving tools instead of weapons, a man who's cheerful, unmarked, uncomplicated. Blessed.

'Josh.' She walks up and puts her hands on either side of his face for emphasis. 'I work with Castle. I don't sleep with him. I don't tell him things I _do_ tell you. But he's my friend, and he's a good friend and I value him. Now I need to get ready for work, so you need to go.'

He takes her hands off his face and holds them. 'I will go when you tell me what happened to your mother.'

'Then you'd better get used to sleeping on the couch.' She pulls her hands out of his and fortunately for him, he doesn't try to hold on because she can feel the anger building again.

'Kate, you can't _live_ with that in your apartment.'

She goes to the closet and yanks out a towel, keeping her back firmly to him. 'I can, and I do. I don't tell you not to go running off to Senegal, don't you dare tell _me_ how to live.'

She storms into the bathroom and turns the shower on full force, not surprised to hear the front door slam shortly after. Their argument seems to hang in the air like the steam that follows her into the bedroom when she's done, making her feel stupidly, furiously alone. Making her wonder if maybe he's right, and her obsession (she knows that's what other people would call it) with her mother's case is indeed morbid, and if the reason Castle understands it is because he's just as morbid as she is when all the evidence is weighed up. Murder is her job and she chose that, yes, but something about it calls to him as well. And despite all that she's told him about herself, Castle has still never answered her question about why he writes about blood and death and the worst things that people can do to each other. Perhaps he doesn't even know.

Dressed, she zips up her boots and stares at herself in the mirror. New clothes, new hair, new home, so much is different since her old apartment blew up. It's taken almost a year to rebuild what was lost in that explosion. How much more can she really stand to lose?

0-0-0-0-0-0

Author's note: I didn't lie about the end of Mornings being out for beta, it's just we all agreed it wasn't the right ending for this story. So, still working on the *(&$^ thing. Sorry.


	3. Chapter 3

_Paris wasn't supposed to be post-episodic, but these next two chapters just insisted on being written that way. Then again, since this started as a one-shot I shouldn't complain :) The muse has been kind, and so have my betas - look for another chapter later this week._

* * *

Kate Beckett keeps waking up in the middle of the night with the terrible conviction that she's missed something essential.

It's like working on a case she can't crack. She's a detective, she has that kind of mind. Unfortunately, there's no murder board to go along with this feeling, no shutters to open, nothing she can go down to the station to stare at for a while. And leaving Josh's bed at 4am to go to work would be hard to explain anyway, especially since she's supposed to be taking a well-deserved long weekend.

She nuzzles further into Josh's side, still cold despite the hours since the freezer, and the post-not-dead dinner of spicy Szechuan shrimp, and the long, hot soak in Josh's impressively deep tub. It occurs to her that there's something very wrong with the way her life is ordered when she can't tell her boyfriend that a nuke almost exploded in her face this afternoon, but she can let him make love to her like someone who only just escaped freezing to death the night before.

That thought doesn't make it any easier to go back to sleep. Each time she feels herself sliding away, she's back in that box, warm even though she knows she's ice cold, curled against the chest of the man she's never dared to love. Perhaps what scares her the most about that memory, what jerks her upright just as she's about to fall, is how peaceful she felt in that moment. Josh could probably explain it to her, something physiological, the way he's explained the white light of near-death stories as the final firing of synapses along the optic nerve. If her body can be fooled into thinking it's warm when it's frozen, then surely it's not so strange that her mind can be fooled into thinking it's content to die?

_As long as it's in Castle's arms._

She rolls out of bed in one fluid motion and pads into the living room. She needs something to occupy her mind, something to keep it from going down that road. No board, no case to mull over; maybe she can find a book.

The night air raises goosebumps on her bare skin and she shivers as she stands before Josh's shelves. His relaxation reading is political thrillers and science fiction; the first too demanding for 4am, and the other - or at least his selection of it - too unfamiliar. It takes her a moment to realise it's still Castle she's looking for, his words, his style, just the perfect blend of meaningful and fun.

She reaches for a tattered copy of _Neuromancer_ instead, puts it back when she realises it's something Castle would probably love. What she needs is some completely sappy chick lit, _Eat Pray Love_, or _Bridget Jones_, the sort of thing he (and let's face it, she) would normally never touch. Unfortunately, neither would Josh.

He slips up behind her in that moment, unnoticed until he puts his robe around her shoulders and whispers, 'Come back to bed. You're chilled to the bone.'

'I'm okay.'

He turns her to face him so he can pull the bathrobe closed, trapping her hands by her sides. 'You're not, you know. Your body's just been through something traumatic and you haven't stopped to let it heal. You should both have spent last night in the hospital.'

'I'm fine, Josh.' She snakes an arm out of the billowing confines of the terrycloth and rubs the stubble on his cheek. 'Stop doctoring me.'

'I will when you stop toughcopping _me_,' he retorts, and they stare at each other for a minute before bursting into laughter.

'Toughcopping?' she finally manages to repeat.

'Hey, there was a certain symmetry to the term,' he protests, and hugs her close, tucking her head comfortably into the hollow of his shoulder. So effortless, his affection, so easy to return.

Desire shimmers down her spine as he slides his fingers through her hair. From the other room, her phone chirps three times, a message received. Josh goes suddenly very still. 'Work wouldn't text,' she says, stretching up to nibble at the bottom of his ear. They both know who would be texting her at this hour, but she's here to be distracted from that, and once she finds an opening to the robe and slides her other hand between his legs, Josh is pretty easy to distract as well.

In the morning, she finally checks the message while Josh is clattering around the kitchen making breakfast.

_Can't sleep_, it says. _How are you?_

For a moment, it all comes rushing back. Not the slow, calm ending in the freezer, but the frenzied rush to find the bomb, the terror quelled looking into his eyes, knowing that whatever happened next, wherever the dead truly went, they'd be going there together.

And suddenly, she can't breathe. It's as if she's having the panic attack now that she should have had then. It's the panic of her radiation detector going off, and sitting in the quarantine hut with her heart racing and cold sweat dripping down her sides while Castle babbled about how bad it all was and how did she go from _no, no, no_ to _if we have to die at least it's together_?

She's so far down the well that it takes Josh's hands on her face to bring her back out. Kate nods and makes herself breathe more slowly and obediently drinks the orange juice he hands her, but she refuses the bottle of Ambien he offers because he's on call tonight and won't be around.

'You need to sleep,' he insists. 'This is physical, not purely mental. The heart works on signals that are disrupted when your metabolism goes out of whack, and that makes it harder to sleep, which makes you exhausted, which makes the signals even more erratic. And so on until you're in a full-blown case of PTSD. Trust me on this one, Kate. I did work on sleep deprivation post-trauma when I was in med school. Take the damn pills for the next three days and get some rest before you have to go back to work.'

She doesn't intend to take them, but she puts the bottle in her bag to stop the argument and concentrates instead on the muesli and the fruit and the yoghurt (and no coffee!) he insists her body needs. Later, when Josh has gone to work and she's ostensibly on her way home, she finds herself detouring to Tribeca. Castle looks like a sleepwalker when he answers the door, still in pajamas with his hair flopping in his face. He's not drinking coffee either, at Alexis' orders, and is grimacing his way through a mug of camomile tea.

She puts the little orange bottle on the kitchen counter between them. 'Josh says we should take these for the next three days to help us sleep.'

Castle picks up the pills and reads the label carefully. She's painfully aware that the prescription is in Josh's name, which may or may not be why Castle puts the bottle back on the counter like something that needs to be handled with great care so it doesn't blow up. 'I'm pretty used to insomnia,' he says. 'And I don't have to go in to the precinct if I'm too tired.' He looks up and smiles, that tight politician grin he gets whenever he's trying to be generous about Josh. 'But you should take them. We can't have New York's finest falling asleep at her desk.'

'I don't really want them either,' she admits.

He gestures to his living room. 'I have zombies. Or vampires. Creatures with tentacles? Spaceships? Name your sleeping pill genre.'

'Slow zombies or fast zombies?' she asks, unable to hide the grin.

He grins back. It makes him look less creased, less worn. Makes her worry less that he's good for her, but apart from book sales she hasn't been remotely good for him. 'Maybe we should stick with slow,' he says. 'Much less stress.'

They settle on classic Romero and more camomile tea (in deference to Alexis, who loves a good zombie-fest, but is presently at school wrestling with calculus). The pills lie forgotten on the counter, and before the dead child can come back to life and eat her dad, the two of them are slumped in their separate corners of the couch, fast asleep with empty cups still in hand.

* * *

_Reviews are like chocolate: YUM._


	4. Chapter 4

_I owe the backstory for the next two chapters to Jillian Casey's fantastic 'Adagio'. It's not necessary to have read that to understand this, but by all means I'll happily wait while you do. __Many thanks to Jill for lending me her Royce. I hope I haven't misused him too much. _

_Beta, as always, by DFMB. Any WTF?s are the result of my ignoring their good advice. _

* * *

It's LA that changes everything. Or maybe it changes nothing at all, maybe the only thing that's changed is her willingness to see it.

Josh is waiting for her at JFK, a surprise she hadn't expected. Castle shakes his hand and goes off to find a limo so quickly she barely has time to say goodbye. He's been like that since the night she almost-

It's not a thought she dares let herself finish. He wasn't in the living room when she opened her door, and as far as she knows, he has no idea how close she came to offering herself to him. Again. It's become another of those things that linger between them, that tapestry of guarded looks and unfinished sentences they've been weaving of late. He may have seemed relaxed on the plane, but she knows him well enough to recognise the cardboard Castle cutout he's hiding behind. They let their moment slide past, much the same way his gaze slid across her face as he left, never letting her catch his eyes.

She thinks he looks sad these days. And old. And tired. It's almost a relief when Josh folds her into his arms and she can't see Castle anymore, walking away alone. Royce's letter lingers, but it's not as simple as _if only_ and she suspects Royce always knew that as well. She would have stayed with him if he hadn't chickened out after their first night together, true, but if she had the chances were just as good she'd have wound up thinking _if only I hadn't. _Nearly ten years on (hell, really after her first few months in Vice) she can see why Royce did what he did and why he thought it was the right thing to do. She'd forgiven him so long ago she hadn't even remembered being angry with him when they met again, only how thrilling she had found him once, how solid and _there _he had been when what she'd needed more than anything was something stable to cling to while she tried to stop her father from drowning them both.

The heart may want what the heart wants, but that doesn't mean that what it wants is right. Or even good. For either.

She presses her face into Josh's shoulder, smells the leather of his jacket and a faint trace of aftershave. This is the man she almost betrayed in LA, and guilt makes her hold him even tighter. She's never done that to anyone, not even as a hormone-crazed teenager. One at a time, her mother had always warned. If you're looking somewhere else, then the relationship you're in is wrong.

_Be the right one. Please be the right one._

She's hugging Josh so tightly now her arms are starting to ache, but it isn't going to be enough. Maybe she's known that for a while, maybe they both know it, and maybe that isn't about Josh going away for weeks at a time, or her working a job where some days it literally is kill or be killed.

Suddenly, there's the threat of tears. It's Castle, yes, but it's Josh and it's Royce, and it's Tom and Will and every man all the way back to Brent Edwards taking her virginity and her best friend in the same week. She's the one who's never quite the right one, who's never figured out what, or who, she really wants.

'What's the matter, babe?' Josh whispers against her hair. 'Did something happen in LA?'

He means something besides her case. She says, 'I lost a friend, almost lost my badge, and haven't slept in about a week.' _And nearly jumped Richard Castle's bones_, but of course she keeps that last bit to herself.

Josh lowers his head, the better to nibble at her ear. 'Well, I know how to fix part of that,' he suggests, in a tone of great happiness at the prospect.

'Josh, I'm not up for-

'Shh.' Now he's even making comfort circles on her back. 'I know that. We can just do the thing with the mac & cheese and the Rocky Road, and if you're really lucky maybe I'll rub your feet before I put you to bed.'

The tears had dried, but now they threaten again. Is it really so hard to let him be there for her, when a couple of months ago all she wanted from him was exactly that? Or is this something else, something that's better left on the West Coast where-

_Nothing happened. You had a stray thought, a thought about straying, but nothing happened, so there's nothing to confess. Nothing even to think about. _

_If only you did. If only you didn't. _

"If only" is like a time paradox - the more she thinks about it, the more confusing everything just gets.

She hugs Josh one last time. 'Make it Chunky Monkey and you're on,' she says, and even lets him take her hand.

* * *

_TBC tomorrow. Yes, I really mean that._

ADDENDUM: Something seems to have gone wonky, and chapter five has now disappeared. If you can't get to it from here, look for it as a separate story.


	5. Chapter 5

_And now, a note from our sponsors:_

_I set out to keep this within canon till the very end, so whither Marlowe goeth, so must go I. If Josh is still in Kate's life when the curtain comes down on 324, please do not blame me for not subjecting him to a fiery flaming death here. __I know where this story is going, and that is still where it will end, but how it gets there will be largely up to what airs tonight. What I wanted for them here was a moment of breath._  


* * *

She hadn't planned on having Josh stay the night, but it's the sort of thing where dropping her off becomes walking her to the door, and the door becomes a cup of coffee, and the coffee turns into pizza and a bottle of wine, and the wine turns Kate into an exhausted toddler, tugging Josh with her as she stumbles off to bed.

It's already well into the morning when she wakes, sprawled bonelessly over Josh's chest. His nicely sculptured torso isn't the only firm thing beneath her hand and she finds she wants it now, needs it, that connection.

Royce's letter is still in her bag. She's aware of that, even as she moves on top of Josh, fills herself with him. She leans into the hands he offers to cup her breasts, bends to take his mouth. Her hips dance to a rhythm from a place so deep it's like an itch she can't quite reach, until she arches back and suddenly he's _there_, exactly where she needs him.

She comes down slowly, like a parachute settling back to earth. His chest in this case, warm and dry. He's hardly broken a sweat yet; she's done all the work. He slips an arm around her hips and holds her tight as he turns them over, settling her into the warm nest of blankets. She wraps her legs around his chest, welcoming the weight of him between her thighs. It's the soft and gentle part of the proceedings; sometimes first, sometimes last, sometimes - like now - in the middle, but always there. It's the part where he moves slowly, and touches her like something precious, where he breaks her with a tenderness she can never quite return, no matter how hard she tries.

Later, they shower and walk across town to the West Village for breakfast. She catches sight of them in the window of a shop as they pass - he, sculpted and gargantuan like a Greek god; she, with her hair untamed, like a favoured mortal safely tucked beneath his arm. They look right together, even beautiful. They look like they're in love.

She stops, staring at their reflection. She doesn't recognise herself in this picture of a carefree young woman strolling aimlessly across East 4th Street on a sunny Sunday morning with her outrageously handsome boyfriend. This is what Josh makes her, but it isn't _her_.

'See something you like?' he asks. She refocuses, realises she's staring at a darkened shoe shop. And then refocuses again as she realises that he's not looking at the shoes either, he's looking at her looking at them. He's looking at her looking at them while she's realising that Royce never knew there was another _if only_, and what would he say if he could see her now?

She turns away and folds herself into Josh's willing arms, suddenly nauseous.

'Kate?'

She makes herself breathe and raise her head. There are people on the sidewalk behind him, glancing at them as they pass, with that feigned disinterest New Yorkers take in each other when personal drama is about to explode in public.

'I think I really need some food,' she says.

He smiles as they walk on, but it's not as bright as it was before. Even as they're seating themselves in Reggio's and trading greetings with the waitress, who they know from other stolen Sunday brunches, she can feel him watching her. He's not Castle-curious, but he's not stupid either. He knows there's something wrong.

He has the grace to wait until there's caffeine in front of them and waffle on her fork to ask what's going on. Kate buys time while she chews and swallows, adding extra maple syrup, which really is too much. She's going to be hyper for an hour, then crash _without _a parachute, and not into anybody's arms. Which she supposes is only fair, since she's about to break another nice guy's heart.

'When they ask you back to Haiti,' she says. 'I think you should go.'

'They won't ask. It would be up to me to offer.'

'Then you should offer.'

'Are you trying to get rid of me?'

She makes herself meet his eyes. He's confused, not sure if he should be hurt or patient. Castle would have found a way to make it into a joke. 'I don't want to be the thing that holds you back from doing what you love.'

'At some point, yeah, something will happen and I'll take another contract, but not for a while.' He reaches over and takes her free hand, clenched on the table. 'I chose not to go to away with us on bad terms because I like what we've got. I like who we are. I don't need this to be anything more than what it is right now. You don't have to be so scared of us.'

And oh, crap, those are tears she feels twisting in her throat. She's going to be that girl crying at a cafe table, breaking up with her boyfriend in public. Except he's not going to let her break them up.

'The friend I lost,' she hears herself saying. 'The case I went to LA for. It was my training officer. It was the guy who made me a cop.'

It's the first time she's confided anything in him, and she can't for the life of her figure out why she's chosen this topic, now.

'I'm sorry,' he says softly. 'I take it you were close.'

_We were lovers. I always thought it was just me in love with him, but I see now it went both ways. We were lovers all along, but we only went to bed that once._

She nods her head, teeth tightly clamped over the words that want to spill out. She has no idea what it all means anymore. Was she Royce's great _if only_, when all this time she'd thought he was just another one of hers? Was he even hers? She hadn't tried to see him after he retired, even after she stopped being angry with him for running. She had simply cordoned the whole thing off as childish infatuation until she saw him again, and by that time it had been so long he was just memory to her. Warm, fond memory, but something past, over, done. She wonders what would have happened if he hadn't betrayed her in the same moment, if they would have gone out for a beer from time to time, or if they'd have once again faded from each other's lives, a little more satisfied with the ending than before.

'What if I never can offer you more than what we are right now?' she asks.

'Kate, I'm not looking for a wife. I'm not asking you to change, I'm not asking you to give up your job.'

'But what if one day this isn't enough?'

'I don't know. Maybe one day we'll look at each other and realise we're done, and maybe we won't. But not today, okay? Today, let's just eat waffles and enjoy what we've got.'

She can't read his face, but she can see that this is Josh's way of begging her to shut up, not to ruin something that's good enough. And isn't this exactly where she was _last _year, and look what happened then? Does she really want to find herself having this same conversation at the same time next year with yet another man?

Kate closes her eyes before the tears can fall. She doesn't know what_ if only_ is supposed to mean and probably never will. Royce is gone. Castle is Castle - a treasured friend, but beyond that, a confusing, writhing mountain of doubt. And Josh is here. Now.

She picks up her fork and gives him a shaky smile. 'Okay,' she agrees, and promises herself she'll burn Royce's letter as soon as she gets home.

* * *

_See you after the finale. ::wibble:: _

_Oh, and you know that thing I always say about chocolate? Yeah, this week it might indeed be necessary for life. _


	6. Chapter 6

_Apologies to all for the long delay. The finale kind of threw me for a loop, partly because I've been writing a long Beckett-recovering-from-gunshot series for ages and had never expected that to get jossed, and partly because I wrote SO MUCH in the week after the finale that I had no idea what to do with most of it. The one thing, oddly, I couldn't write, was the next installment of this story, which meant most of the rest had to sit and wait. I knew there had to be something between the last chapter and Intermezzo, but then I didn't think Intermezzo fit here anyway, so I posted that. And then the muse stomped off all huffy because she wasn't done with Josh yet. I'm not exactly sure what brought her back, but I'm grateful, and she still loves chocolate :)_

All of which to say, if you're still here, thanks for your patience, and I think the other things will start getting posted now that the muse and I are on speaking terms again.

* * *

Josh doesn't come over after midnight unannounced; it's one of their unspoken rules. But here he is, with a bottle of wine and an apologetic smile, and beyond that, a kind of wildness in his dark eyes that she recognises all too clearly. She's guessing the emergency bypass that made him cancel dinner didn't wind up going very well.

She lets him in and there are no preliminaries, he's just on her as soon as she's locked the door. It's not rough, but it's not gentle either, not the way he's normally gentle with her at first, kissing and coaxing, testing her response. He understands that much, that there are days when she needs him, and days when she has nothing left to give. He has days like that as well; when they're lucky, their days match. Or at least balance.

Her day hasn't been too bad. The guilty confessed, the pageant went on, for whatever that's worth to those who care. Murder for greed bothers her less than murder for love or jealousy or revenge. Tonight it's easy to give Josh her full attention, to rise to her toes and wrap her arms around his neck, giving him the full-body contact he so obviously craves.

He calms down a little once he knows she isn't going to run or push him away. She lets her head fall back and offers him her neck, which he gratefully accepts, nipping her just hard enough to send a bolt of lightning down between her legs.

His huge hands spread out against her spine, pressing her closer still. God, she loves his hands - she can admit that much, right? That there are _parts_ of Josh she loves? His elegant surgeon's hands, so graceful for such a giant of a man. She loves those long slender fingers, the way they seem to reach things inside her that other men can't. A moan escapes just thinking about his hands and his mouth, wanting them all over her, everywhere.

He's so damned good at this. It's just not fair.

He lifts her nightshirt over her head and drops to one knee, his face pressed against her bare skin, stroking her, lifting her breasts so he can cover them with kisses, his tongue hot against her nipples, drawing ice from her source up to his mouth, melting it, then sending it back down. She threads her fingers through his hair, not guiding, not yet, just needing something to hold on to, something to touch. His shoulders, broad and strong, his arms, the biceps flexed, too big for her to get her hands around. She loves this, too, the sheer size of him, the way he dwarfs her when her shoes are off. She's never been with a man this much taller before; it's a whole change in landscape, the things he can do on his knees, the way he can wrap those muscular arms around her hips, and slide those hands, those amazing hands, between her legs, long fingers stroking her from behind, her thighs trembling against his chest. It's a delicious imbalance, the sensations still sharp and hot above, muffled by the thin cotton of her pajamas below.

And then he gets to his feet, still holding her so that she rises with him, feet leaving the ground. She laughs at the strangeness of being picked up like a child, clutches at his jacket for balance. He has on entirely too much clothing, she thinks, so distracted by the difficulty of getting a grip on the heavy leather that she almost misses the walk to her living room, and Josh taking her pajama bottoms with him as he lowers her to the couch and strokes his way down the length of her legs. He slides his hands behind her knees and she cries out as his mouth comes down on her, hard and hot and greedy, and oh god how she loves it when he does this, just like this...

She comes back for a moment as he pulls her towards the edge of the couch, just long enough to hear herself babbling a stream of words mostly consisting of _yes_ and _there, _and then he slides those glorious fingers inside her and the last clear thought she has is that she's going to leave him bald if she doesn't stop pulling on his hair. Then there's no more thought, just need, raw and electrifying, and just when it feels like she'll never get to the end, never find herself again, he fills her, suddenly, roughly, and her body breaks open like an oyster finally offering up its pearl.

It's a bit more ordinary after that. Him still on his knees, but moving slowly now, so that the pressure is less intense. Josh leans back and runs his fingertips over her damp chest, drawing circles around her breasts. She's having just a little trouble catching her breath. 'You're amazing,' he says softly, looking at his hands, not at her face. Not into her eyes. As if he really wanted to say something else.

'I had some help.' She wants to keep it light, teasing, but her voice is hoarse, full of sex. She thinks there might have been a bit of screaming near the end.

And now he does look her in the eyes, and what she sees there is more than she wants. 'Kate-' he starts, but she cuts him off, pulling him down to take the words from his mouth before he can form them, holding him with arms and legs wrapped too tight for him to pull back and see her fear.

'Fuck me,' she whispers, and he thrusts instinctively, hard enough to make her moan again. 'Yes, like that. Just like that. Take me, fuck me, make me come again.'

It's his turn to moan now, to lose himself. She's never spoken to him like that, never spoken to _any_ man like that. She's not a dirty talker, she's a do-er, a show-er, she's a grab his head and make him put his tongue where she needs it kind of girl. 'Take me,' she whispers again, and something clenches inside her stomach, something good, something that should have been there all along, but hasn't been, not since...when? She can't remember. Those first weeks with him, maybe, that long ago.

He sits on his heels and pulls her down hard onto him, so her feet are on the ground now, and she's got leverage, she's got weight, she's got the edge of the couch to push against. She's got Josh inside her, so gorgeously far inside her, and her stomach doing what it should be doing, and her other parts pretty damn happy as well, and they're meeting each other halfway, cries and sweat and everything else intermingled, and her last thought before she lets her mind go and her body take over is, _I could love him, I could, god please just let me love him, please just- _

0-0-0

They're spooned together later, fitting not quite perfectly but neatly enough. Her teaspoon to his tablespoon; her bottom nestled comfortably in his lap and his huge hand spread possessively across her breasts.

'Kate?' he murmurs against the back of her head, and her heart suddenly lurches inside her chest.

_Not now, Josh. Please. You wanted me to shut up and I did. I'm there. I'm almost there. Just give me a few more weeks. A few more months. I can do this. I know I can._

She squeezes her eyes shut, mentally bracing for the blow. 'Yeah?'

'Don't hold your breath. It isn't bad.' He draws her a little closer and leans over to nip gently at her ear. 'I was just thinking...you know I'm going to be away for most of the summer?'

He's told her about that, right. Three months in Somalia, in the middle of civil war so hot they've delayed sending the team twice already. And he thinks her job is something to be worried about. 'So they think it's finally safe enough to go?'

'Well, AMISOM are still trying to get the Bakaara market under control, so at the moment no, but it looks like it will be pretty soon. But there's a steering committee meeting in Paris they want me to go to, at the beginning of June. There's a couple of field techniques I was working on in Senegal that might be good in areas with limited equipment like Mogadishu and they want me to give a briefing about it before we go.'

She tries to decide whether it's okay to relax or not. 'That sounds great,' she answers cautiously, not sure where he's trying to lead her.

'Well, I was thinking...once I get the call, there's not going to be much time. And then we're not going to see each other for at least three months.'

So, not okay. She can't relax, but she can't let herself stiffen either. She promised herself after he gave up Haiti that she was not going to become the whiny girlfriend at home, that she was not going to stand in his way next time he wanted to go. She wouldn't put up with it when he tried it on her; they both love the work they do.

But oh god, that doesn't mean she has to like him running off to a fucking war zone, does it? He does quadruple bypasses for rich New Yorkers who are too fond of steak and taking limos to go two blocks, and sews up holes in newborn babies' hearts. Isn't that heroic enough? Why does he need to learn to remove shrapnel from an insurgent's chest with a pair of tweezers and a magnet?

'I was thinking maybe we could go to Paris together,' he says, and she can feel his smile as he nuzzles her cheek. 'You said you've always wanted to go back with someone, and I could take some extra time before my meeting. We could hang out in the art museums, or rent a couple of Harleys and just ride around. I've got a friend whose family has a house in the Loire he said we could use. Just...something to get away for a little while, to be together for more than a few hours before I have to go.'

'Summer's hard, Josh,' she answers automatically. 'It's busy season and we usually let the people with kids get first crack at the vacation slots.'

'No one on your team has kids, Kate.'

'Montgomery does, and Karpowski, and Ecclestone—'

'Kate.' He slips his hand under her shoulder and tugs, supporting her as she turns to face him, so she doesn't fall off the couch. 'I've been thinking about this a lot since you came back from LA. And I think...I think our problem is that we're trying to build a relationship around two crazy jobs on a couple of hours snatched here and there. And we can't. I mean, timewise, if we were normal people dating, we'd have been going out for maybe three weeks by now, but instead, it's been almost a year. So let's go to Paris and spend a week together and see what we're like when it's just the two of us and all the time in the world. No jobs, no friends, no-'

'Castle?'

Damn it, she hadn't meant to say that. She hadn't. She shivers, suddenly aware of the sweat still drying on her skin, clammy now that her body is cooling down.

Josh's face has gone still, very still. 'Does this feel like it has anything to do with Castle? Because if it does, Kate, if it feels like I'm asking you to give something up-'

'No, I just...That's not what I meant.' She trails off, uncertain. She can't read Josh's face and that unnerves her. Maybe this is it. The sign, the release button. Press it and he's gone. Is that really what she wants?

_Panic_.

She climbs closer, into his arms, holding on to him as he adjusts, moving them both over so he can lie on his back. She stretches out on top of him, head over his thumping heart, the skin of his upper arm soft beneath her hand. He folds his arms across her back and her body melts into his, welcoming his embrace.

Okay, she doesn't want him gone. Then what?

She takes a deep, steadying breath. Finger on the trigger, not entirely sure that she's not aiming at her own head. 'Castle is not just a friend. He's my partner.' Beneath her cheek, Josh's shoulder stiffens, but she forges on. 'But more than that, he makes me laugh, he brings me coffee, he knows what I need to get the job done. I could do it without him, and I have, but he makes the work bearable, Josh. He makes me the person you fell for.'

How much more bearable and why Josh has no idea, and if she's lucky he never will. But okay. Her finger is still on the trigger. She raises her head to look at him and so far no one's bleeding, it's all good. 'I had a hard time after my mom died. I put everything into the job. And I think I forgot how to be anything but a cop. I thought I was getting strong, getting tough, like I had to be, but...now I can see I was getting hard. Distant. I know I still am, I know I'm hard to get close to, but Josh, you have no idea what I was like three years ago. And that's Castle. It's because of Castle that I'm still here, with you, right now. That I didn't break this off as soon as I realised you wanted more than just a hot fling for the summer.'

He's quiet for a moment, tracing her cheekbone, her jaw.

'I'm glad you qualified that with hot,' he finally says, running his fingers through her hair, pushing it off her face and behind her shoulder with a smile. It's not a big happy smile, but it doesn't look too terribly forced. He's listening. He's hearing her. Which is good, because that's more about Castle than she's ever tried to explain to anyone before, even herself.

'We're not lovers, we've never been and never will be.' She ignores the sharp twist of an unexpected knife in her belly and tucks a clump of falling hair back behind her ear. 'He flirts with me, but it's not real. He doesn't think of me like that.'

_Is that still true? Was it ever true? _She'd been sure it was. Then that it wasn't. But she's been wrong before so what if she's wrong now? Does it even matter when she's already made some kind of commitment to somebody else? Goddamn Royce, she's back to _if only_, like some crap song she can't get out of her head.

'Castle's been good for you,' Josh says, before she can continue. 'I get that, Kate, you've said it before. Can we just acknowledge that between us, without me having to thank him for it? Because that would be weird.'

'Yes,' she agrees. 'That would be weird.'

'And has nothing to do with whether or not you and I can bear to spend a week in each other's company in one of the most romantic cities on the planet.'

Somehow, that makes her smile. 'No, it doesn't.'

'So come with me to Paris. I know you have enough vacation left. There'll never be a _good _time, you just have to decide it's_ this_ time and stick with it. Let's find out what we're like with morning breath and sore feet and if we get grumpy when our blood sugar's falling and we can't agree on what to eat.'

'How wonderfully attractive you make it sound.' She's laughing now, in spite of the panic still fluttering at the edges of her breath. 'And after I've fed you _marrons glacé_ and made you brush your teeth?'

''I have no idea, because I have no idea what that is. So we'll have to go so you can feed them to me.' He lays a hand on her cheek, suddenly serious, and she has to look away. 'I think we need to know, don't you? I think this is getting confusing for everyone.'

'I do want you, I want to love you,' she blurts. 'And at the same time, I'm so terrified I will.'

'I know,' he whispers. 'Me too.'

Slowly, she raises her face and makes herself look at him, really look. She loves the fathomless dark of his eyes, the warmth and kindness hidden in those depths, the crazy thick lashes that make him look like the world's last innocent. She takes a breath and finds no panic clenching her chest, no finger on the trigger. All this time, she was never the one holding the gun.

'If we fall in love,' she whispers back, 'what happens?'

'I don't know. I know I'm not ready to settle down, but if I think about just us together, just being together, and never getting married and never having kids, it sounds...kind of fantastic. Like everything else is just expectation, and instead we could be the lucky ones, we could have the freedom to do our work and have each other and travel and live without being tied down. But then I realised that I don't actually know what _you _want. We never talk about things like that, mostly we just have sex. So let's go to Paris and spend a week together and by the end of the week, we'll know if there's anything more to us than that.'

'We're going to spend an entire week talking about the future?' She tries not to sound as horrified as she feels, but it must show on her face because he pulls her down and kisses her softly.

'No. The opposite. We're not even going to think about it. We're just going to relax and enjoy being together and at the end of the week we'll be standing at Roissy and it will either be the worst goodbye we've ever said, or you'll be relieved to get on a plane and go back to New York. And that's how we'll know if we're supposed to be together.'

She breathes that in for awhile. 'So, if it's the worst goodbye, then we're in this for real?'

'For real, for good, wherever the road takes us. We can figure out the logistics as we go.'

'What if it's not the worst goodbye? Or one of us is relieved and the other one isn't?'

'Then we kiss and part as friends. I'll go hang out in the buddy-corner with Castle. Who knows? Maybe he and I will wind up dating each other.'

She laughs, as he clearly wants her to, but she's still not quite on board. 'Is that what you think happened with him? I sent him to the corner?'

'No, what I think happened with Castle is you never tried to find out what was really going on. And three years later, you still don't know. I don't want to go to Somalia not knowing if it's okay to love you, not knowing if I'm going to come home and find you gone.'

She closes her eyes and lays her head back on his chest. She hears Royce's voice from somewhere long ago, gruff as always:_ Hey kid, d'you hear the one about the old lady and the cats? Hey kid, it's your round, don't gimme that crap about rookie pay. Hey kid, this was a crazy mistake, but don't worry, in six months you'll be hanging out with some other guy, you won't even remember who Mike Royce is. _

'Okay,' she finally says, raising herself above him. She can do it like this. Not her decision, not his. No one needs to pull the trigger to make this stop or start; it will live or die all by itself. 'Okay, tell me the date and I'll clear a week and we'll go to Paris.'

His smile is gorgeous, and his fingers are...are doing _that_, and she feels strangely giddy as he strokes her towards release, like she's been holding on to something that's been struggling to get free for so long she's forgotten what it is she's even holding. All those squirming questions – Castle, her mother, Royce, Josh – everything she can't let go of slips from her aching arms, and she flies free, weightless, finally settling against him like a feather come to rest. At least there's one question she won't have to pick up again. He's freed them both from that.

Beckett smiles as sleep steals over her. All in all, it's been a pretty good day, like the universe has shifted to her side at last. Maybe she'll even get lucky out at Sing-Sing tomorrow, get Lockwood to crack.


	7. Chapter 7

_I had a hard time deciding which universe this would belong to, and in the end I had to wait till the new season premiered. And then things intervened. Sorry for leaving everyone hanging, and thanks to everyone who's still here. _

* * *

The first time she wakes, it's to hands around her throat, inside her throat, a suffocating panic she can't even thrash away. She hears herself making garbled, unintelligible noises, and then there's Castle's voice, soft in her ear, telling her over and over that she's all right, and even though there's still something she can't swallow, and still something holding her down when all her instincts want to punch, she makes herself believe his promise as the dark wave comes to bear her away.

There's a time after that, and another, and each time he's there, a soft whisper of safety she clings to while her body rails, and then falters and fades. Later, the great obstruction in her throat is gone, to be replaced by a hot, terrible fire, each muscle separately burning, lava flowing through her veins. She hears Josh in those times, and sometimes Castle, sometimes both at the same time. Sometimes she's not quite sure which it is, but she clings to the voice as it calls her name and begs her to stay. She would like to stay, but it's not her choice. There are weights on her ankles in the darkness and the only way to escape the fire is to let the heaviness drag her down.

And then she wakes to a coolness in her mouth, something fresh and unexpected. There is pain where the worst of the fire once was, but it's distant, muffled. One hand is cold, but the other is cocooned, pleasantly warm. She concentrates every gram of energy she possesses and manages to move her thumb.

_'Kate!'_

It breaks through the hum in her ears as something real, something outside herself.

_'Kate! Do it again. Please, just do that again.'_

For a moment she drifts, forgetting what she's done. Why is everything so far away, so dark and difficult?

Thumb. She needs to move her thumb.

She tries and tries and finally has to relinquish the fight, plummeting back into the darkness, not even sure if she's managed to do it again or not.

The next time, she wakes to words, a soft steady stream. Words that carry her back to awareness of self, of the muted burn in her chest, of the large, slightly sweaty hand she holds. She listens, captivated, to the sound of his voice, only gradually understanding that it's her own story he's telling her. It's Castle, reading her the newest Nikki Heat.

She squeezes the hand and the words immediately stop. A brief weight settles onto her forehead.

_'Kate? Are you here?'_

It seems a strange way to ask for her. Of course she's here, where else would she be? She wants to tell him that, but her voice is gone. And then, so is she.

The next thing she hears is Josh's voice, gently urging her to wake up. This time, when she opens her eyes, she knows that something's different. There's a corner somewhere that she's turned. She blinks, and the light hurts, but it's a different hurt, like a hangover after a night on the town she can barely remember. She hasn't had one of those in a very long time.

Her mouth tastes like hangover as well, something coating her teeth like rust. Dry rust, dry rot. She swallows and finds her throat still hurts. Her chest still burns, and when she instinctively gasps against the sudden intrusion of light directly into her eye, she can feel the sharp stab of broken ribs, and beneath her left arm, a hollow ache like someone's clawed a great chunk of her torso away.

'I know. I know,' Josh murmurs. 'But I need you to try to wake up, Kate. Wake up, and we'll give you something for the pain.'

She tries to answer, but it comes out an inarticulate moan. It doesn't sound like her, it doesn't sound like anything recognisably human, and she shudders, ashamed, which just brings on a fresh wave of agony.

'Okay, here. Shh, here we go.'

She hears something clicking near her ear, and a few moments later, something cool and refreshing has entered her blood, something like an old Pepto Bismol commercial, coating and soothing, creating a protective barrier between her mind and her body, cocooning her thoughts in their own tiny bubble where she's safe.

She's ready to slip away again, but Josh is still there, urging her to open her eyes, and this time when she does there's a warm glow to the world, a muzziness like vaseline smeared on a camera lens. It makes him look softened, like an aging diva, but it can't quite smooth the furrow of concern away from his forehead or calm the real fear lurking in the back of his eyes.

'Hey,' he smiles. 'Welcome back.'

She tries to answer, but she can only manage a croak. He reaches for a cup, fishes in it, and holds up an ice cube. She would like one of her fancy coffees instead, even precinct monkey piss, but she manages to make her mouth open enough to receive it. The ice is cold, delicious, not enough to remove all the rust, but enough to wet her mouth so that speech becomes vaguely possible. 'Am I okay?' she finally manages to ask, though her tongue feels twice its normal size and won't make certain sounds.

'You were shot in the chest,' Josh answers, placing another ice cube in her mouth. 'The bullet only grazed your heart, but it tore up your left lung, so we've had you sedated on a ventilator to control your breathing while some of the damage healed. You've still got drainage tubes in your chest, so you'll need to be careful how you move, but overall you're making excellent progress.'

He's avoiding her eyes, she realises, slightly proud of herself for not losing all her detecting skills. 'What're you not saying?'

'I'm not _not _saying anything,' he swears, raising his eyes at last. They're glassy, his thick lashes stuck together with unshed tears. 'You're going to be fine. It's not going to be easy for the next few weeks, but you're going to be fine.'

He raises her hand to his mouth and kisses her fingers. She hadn't even realised he was holding her hand till then, but now that she has, she realises he's disengaging and she doesn't want him to leave. _Castle wouldn't leave_, she thinks, but then he's not here, is he, so he must have gone home at some point.

'Is Castle...' Her energy is already going, or the drugs are putting her back to sleep, because she has no idea how to finish that sentence once she's started. Not to Josh, anyway.

'He's been calling me like hourly for updates for the last five days.'

'But he was here.'

'No.'

'He was. I heard him, he was reading to me...'

Josh lays her hand back on the bed, uses both of his to knuckle at his eyes. 'No. He tried to see you at first, but they only let immediate family into ICU.'

'And you.' Something cracks in her chest, sharp and nothing to do with bullet-fractured ribs.

'Rank has its privileges.' Josh smiles, thin as it is, and stands up, leaning over to press a kiss to her forehead. 'I'm actually on shift, so I can't stay any longer, but I'll come back when I'm off. Your surgeon will be by later, and if he decides you're ready to be moved out of here, you'll be able to see anyone you want.'

There's something in his voice she can hear, but she can't ask what it is because she really is beginning to feel quite numb all over, and when she opens her mouth it's like she's forgotten how to make the words come out. And to be honest, maybe she doesn't really want to know.

She closes her eyes and sees an image of Castle's face, as if it's burnt into the thin skin of the lids, as if his voice is etched on her eardrums, saying that he loves her, begging her to stay. Not real then, no more real than him sitting beside her, reading to her, holding her hand. None of that was real, and this time it's disappointment she tastes as she lets go and drifts away.


End file.
